Budgetary Review and Recommendations Reports of Brand South Africa, Department of Communications & GCIS; Short listing of candidates to be interviewed for Media Development and Diversity Agency Board

Meeting report

Brand SA Budgetary Review and Recommendations Report
The Chairperson tabled the report and invited input from Members.

Mr A Steyn (DA) raised a concern on page 6, section 1.6 which stated that the Report was aligned to the broader government policy framework, New Growth Path, National Development Plan and the ruling party priorities. He wondered whether the sentence needed to include ruling party priorities when it was assumed that the broad government policy framework is in fact the ruling party’s priorities. He noted that it was not necessary to include the two in the sentence, but perhaps just write ‘government’s priorities’.

Ms R Morutoa (ANC) responded that she did not understand why some people did not want to accept that the ANC was the ruling party.

Ms R Lesoma (ANC) also said she did not understand Mr Steyn’s point and requested that he clarifies.

Mr Steyn stated that the Report was a Committee Report and not an individual party’s report. It was therefore acceptable to say the policies of the government or the governing party, rather than making reference to a particular party.

Ms M Shinn (DA) agreed with Mr Steyn stating that South Africa being a Republic had governors and not rulers, as such it needed to be governing party priorities.

Ms Morutoa argued that the debate did not need to go any further. She stated that she could not understand the logic because the government was the ruling party and the term was one used in many other countries besides South Africa. She argued that the ANC was governing because it was the ruling party.

The Chairperson noted that Members did not agree on whether the sentence needed to say ruling party’s priorities or governing party’s priorities.

Ms Shinn argued that governing was a more befitting term for a Republic than ruling. She said ruling termed to imply absolute rulers like Kings such as King Mswati who was a ruler. She added that in South Africa, people were governed and not ruled.

Ms W Newhoudt-Druchen (ANC) suggested that the sentence be changed to say ruling government’s priorities, so as for outsiders who read the document to also know that it was a priority for the ruling government then, for that specific year as opposed to just saying governing or ruling party.

Ms Shinn stated that she was not going to go to war over that anymore, even though she believed ruling was not the right term to use.

Ms Morutoa questioned the logic in saying ruling government, when there was only one government. She however admitted that she had finally understood Ms Shinn’s argument on the use of ruling and governing especially the comparison made between a Kingdom and Republic. She agreed that indeed governing was better term to use.

Members agreed and the sentence was amended with the word governing and not ruling.

On page 7, section 2.1, Ms Shinn referred to the first sentence, which stated, “In his SoNA in February 2013, his Excellency President Jacob Zuma stated…”

She indicated that the President was not an Excellency. And that just like the previous discussion on ruling and governing, the term referred to royalty and the President was the President of a Republic. She proposed that the sentence should instead read, “In his SoNA in February 2013, President Jacob Zuma stated…”

Ms. Morutoa agreed that indeed it did not make sense to use Excellency in the Report.

Ms Lesoma noted that while learning was an everyday thing, she felt that the term Excellency is one that been used all the time even in Parliament and it had become the norm. She therefore proposed that the term be left as it was because it was what had been used all along, even though she agreed with Ms Shinn that it may not be right but it was in line with keeping with the norm of Parliament.

The Members agreed to remove the word and just use President as suggested by Ms Shinn.

Still on page 7, paragraph 3, the sentence which started with “The Agency supports many of government’s policy frameworks…”

Ms Shinn suggested that the Committee replace the word agency with entity instead.

The Chairperson asked Mr Sandile Nene, the Committee Researcher, to clarify which term was the right one to use. He agreed with Ms Shinn that entity was the right word.

Members agreed to amend everywhere in the document where it was referred to as agency.

On the same page, paragraph 4, Ms Shinn suggested that Nation Brand be written as National Brand as it was representing a brand belonging to the nation.

Mr Nene clarified that it was correct to say Nation Brand. He explained that everywhere in the world, the phenomenal around brand nation was not really national brand so it was correct as it was.

On page 10, section 4.1, Ms Shinn noted the use of decimals when writing figures. She said South Africa was a metric nation and no longer used decimal. Therefore, figures needed to be separated by commas and not decimal. She asked that it be corrected in the entire Report as it was confusing and there was no consistency.

The Chairperson inquired if that was how figures were written in the Estimates of National Expenditure and other Treasury documents. He noted that if that was the case, then the problem was one emanating from somewhere else and not the Committee’s fault.

Mr Nene responded that the figures as they were came directly from the Estimates of National Expenditure, and they used decimals not commas.

In view of the above, Mr Steyn requested for consistency in writing the figures which he said were not clear as in some cases there were decimals and others commas. He cited page 10 and page 13 as examples.

On page 11, Mr Steyn noted that the figure R148.8m in section 4.2.1.1, which referred to available budget, was different from sections 4.2.1.2 and 4.2.1.3 which both indicated R154.8m. He sought clarity on which amount was correct between the two.

Mr Nene clarified that it was supposed to be R154.8m.

On page 12, section 4.5.2, the figures in the table did not correspond with the explanation given in the paragraph. Mr Mbombo Maleka, the Content Advisor, apologised and explained that the mix up must have been so because they were looking at three financial years. He corrected that the figure R132m was wrong and needed to be R135m.

There were no other issues and the Chairperson moved to the next Report for DoC.

Department of Communication Budgetary Review and Recommendations Report
The Chairperson tabled the report and invited input from Members.

On page 10, section 2.4, the last paragraph, Mr Steyn noted that the last sentence that spoke to the Department’s new structure should be deleted because the structure had not yet been approved.

Ms Tsebe thought that the sentence was just fine since it did not exactly state that the structure had been approved.

Mr Steyn then suggested that the Committee add ‘proposed’ to the sentence so that it could read as ‘proposed new structure’ since the process of coming up with the structure had not yet been completed, therefore, it was possible that it could change once completed.

Members agreed.

The Chairperson also noted that because the Committee was not responsible for approving any structures, the Committee had to delete the part that indicated so in that same paragraph.

On page 35, section 6, first paragraph, Mr Steyn raised a concern on the statement that indicated that the Department was efficient and effective in deriving Economic Value Add (EVA) in relation to the budget allocations and service delivery performance. He was concerned because the Department spent its entire budget but achieved only less than 60% of its targets.

The Chairperson explained that EVA was different in that it was the value added to the economy; therefore, it was not necessarily linked to targets and achievements.

Ms Tsebe agreed with the Chairperson, saying that if one looked at the paragraph and the other paragraphs that followed, it was well stated.

Mr Steyn stated that without taking away from the positive things the Department had done; it was also not right to say that it was efficient and effective because it could have done better. He proposed that instead, the sentence should read as “Notwithstanding the service delivery performance as noted below, the Department could have been more efficient and effective in deriving EVA in relation to the budget allocations and service delivery performance.”

Ms Shinn also argued that while the Department had created jobs, it had failed to unlock the country’s economic potential in as far as communication was concerned. She stated that it could have done better by rolling out DTT, broadband policy, and the burdensome regulations, amongst others years ago. She added that, in fact, the Department was a major inhibitor to the country’s economic growth.

Ms Lesoma agreed with Mr Steyn’s proposal on restructuring the sentence.

Still on page 35, section 6.1, paragraph two, Ms Shinn suggested that the comma on the figure 100,000 be knocked off since it had been established that it was not the correct way of writing figures, and also so as to be consistent with the writing in the entire Report.

On page 41, section 7.2, Ms Shinn noted that the major problem with the Department was a management issue, and not one to do with vacancies as was indicated there. She stated that it had to do with the calibre of the leaders in the Department and not how many they were, that the right people with the right skills did not occupy the top positions.

The Chairperson however mentioned that when the Department made its presentation to the Committee, it was clear that it was difficult for the Department to operate with insufficient staff as one person was taking on work meant to be done by more than one person. Therefore, the first step was to have more staff. He stated that three DDG’s were not there and those were key personnel needed to lead the Department and provide key strategic planning. He wondered how efficiency could then be attained.

Ms Lesoma agreed with the Chairperson and stated that the Department was working to attract and retain the right skills. She added that actually that issue had been handled already in the Report referring to section 6 on page 25 where the sentence had been amended.

Mr Steyn urged the Committee to not lose sight of the fact that it was discussing governance and operational issues and that the Auditor-General (AG) also spoke about leadership problems. He said that the Committee needed to acknowledge that there was leadership instability even at Ministerial level as Ministers came and went in a short space of time. He suggested that another paragraph be included to state this.

Ms Shinn maintained that it needed to be acknowledged nonetheless that the Department had management and leadership issues.

The Chairperson requested that the point be included in the amended sentence in section 6 to include leadership instability. He however mentioned that some of those issues were in the recommendations on page 44.

Ms Tsebe also supported the Chairperson, saying that indeed the amended sentence covered the Department’s deficiency and that what was important was the fact that the Committee had acknowledged that the Department needed to improve, regardless of where in the document it was stated.

After a lot of debate on the issue, Members finally agreed and the sentence on section 7.2 on page 41 was amended to read “based on the AG’s findings about consistent leadership instability, the Department needs to prioritise lowering of the vacancy rate which has influenced service delivery of the Department.”

There were no further issues and the Chairperson moved to the next Report for GCIS.

Government Communications and Information System Budgetary Review and Recommendations Report
The Chairperson tabled the report and invited input from Members.

On page 31, under Recommendations, Ms Shinn proposed another recommendation to say that Government Communications and Information System (GCIS) should have an independent audit to determine the effectiveness of its publications. She said that GCIS printed so many publications every year but it was not known how effective they were and if they reached its target audience.

Mr Steyn supported Ms Shinn adding that in some of the Committee oversight meetings, it had come across issues where a million copies were printed but few were distributed.

Ms Tsebe wondered whether that was really necessary because GCIS had been questioned about that and they it responded citing the challenges it faced in so doing.

The Chairperson asked whether it needed to be an independent audit per se. He gave an example of the AG’s office, which was a government office but still conducted audits.

Ms Shinn replied that if it was AG’s office conducting the audit that would be okay, but not GCIS itself.

Ms Lesoma requested that Members refrained from suggesting that if something was not done their way then it was not good enough or effective.

Ms Tsebe agreed and stated that what was important was to first of all request GCIS to have an audit and once that was done, the Committee would then take it up from there. She said it was not right to say it should have an independent audit when the Committee did not even know what GCIS would decide, perhaps it would go straight for an external audit. She further added that the Committee did not know the financial muscle of GCIS therefore it could not decide the kind of audit.

Ms Shinn expressed concern saying she did not understand why the ANC was scared of having an independent audit because there was nowhere where people audited themselves.

The Chairperson stated that the Committee could not really dictate to GCIS the kind of audit it should have. He said an audit of the publications in itself was a good start as it was something that had never been before. He cautioned Members against believing the notion that everything to do with government was not credible, a debate he said he was trying to avoid.

All the three reports were concluded with amendments.

Ms Lesoma moved for adoption of the Brand SA BRRR and was seconded by Ms Morutoa.

Ms Lesoma also moved for adoption of the DOC BRRR and was seconded by Ms Z Ndlazi (ANC).

Ms Tsebe moved for adoption of GCIS BRRR and was seconded by Ms Morutoa.

However, the DA reserved its decision on all three Reports.

Shortlist for Media Development and Diversity Agency Board (MDDA)
Out of twenty-eight nominations, the Committee short-listed five candidates. Three were male and two were female.

The DA floated two candidates and the ANC three candidates. The candidates were: Ms Noxolo Mtana, Ms Nosipho Kota, Mr Howard Plaatjies, Mr Roland Williams and Mr Ratha TR Ramatlhape.

Interviews were scheduled for the following week, 5 and 6 November 2013.

The meeting was adjourned.